Read the text below and answer Questions 1-7.
Carnival Events Guide
A
Crazy Colin
Children's Entertainer
will be appearing around the Carnival site 9.00-12.00. Free balloon for children and adults. Try balloon modelling and stilt walking! Colin's assistant Kathy will also be available for face-painting.
B
Punch and Judy Show
The Carnival would like to welcome back Punch and Judy after a three-year absence. Come and see everyone's favourite puppets.
Free entry but please feel free to make a donation.
Shows at 1 p.m., 2.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m.
C
The Carnival Committee
invite you for tea and coffee at the main tent. Browse our second-hand book stalls and buy some of our beautiful homemade cakes and biscuits.
Open throughout the Carnival:
9.00 a.m. Close: 4.00 p.m.
50p Entrance Fee
D
Carnival Procession
This year the theme of our procession is 'fashion through the ages'. Watch children and adults from the local community model clothes from different periods throughout history. The procession sets off from St Bartholomew's Church at 12.30 p.m. and arrives at the main Carnival gates at lunchtime (approximately 1.00-1.30 p.m.).
______________
Read the text below and answer Questions 8-13.
Physiotherapy Appointment
Dear Sir
Re: Your Physiotherapy Appointment
Following our telephone conversation, this is to confirm that an appointment has been made for you at our Physiotherapy Unit with Sam Major at the following time:
Saturday June 14th 10.30 a.m.
Physiotherapy Unit
Slowerbridge Hospital
Lower Lane
Stowerbridge
Please report to the main reception on arrival. If you are unable to attend please phone 0543 1146 to arrange a new appointment. Patients who fail to notify us may be disqualified from further treatment.
You will be required to carry out some light exercise during your treatment. Please wear loose clothing. You should also avoid eating a heavy meal prior to your appointment.
Please bring a list of all current medication when you attend.
On completion of your treatment please report again to reception to arrange any future sessions and to be signed out of the Physiotherapy Unit.
Parking is available at the hospital. Charges apply except for patients in receipt of benefits (pension, unemployment etc). To claim free parking please supply relevant documents at the reception desk.
We look forward to seeing you at your appointment.
Physiotherapy unit
Read the text below and answer Questions 14-20.
Sports Centre
Terms of membership - Clarenden Engineering employees
- We offer three levels of membership to Clarenden Engineering employees - Platinum, Gold and Silver. The level of membership will determine when you are able to use the facilities. Please refer to the brochure available from reception for further details.
- Discounts are only available to those employed with Clarenden Engineering. Applicants must show evidence of their employment with the company.
- Subscriptions must be paid in advance. This can be in full or by monthly direct debit. Please note that membership is for the period of one year. Refunds will only be made under special circumstances. Should you cancel your membership, cards must be returned immediately.
- All new members are required to undertake an induction session during which use of the equipment and facilities is explained. Non-attendance at an induction session will result in you being refused entry to the facilities. The centre reserves the right to withdraw membership from, and take appropriate action against, any person found to have wilfully misused the equipment or facilities within the centre.
- Squash and badminton courts must be booked in advance. Bookings can be made up to 7 days in advance by calling 0773 2139 or in person at reception. In order to ensure optimum use of our facilities, members must inform the centre if they do not intend to keep an appointment. Failure to notify us can result in staff refusing to make further reservations. The gymnasium and swimming pool can be used without the need to book a session.
- Members will not be given access to the facilities without the presentation of a valid membership card.
- Please note that we cannot be held responsible for any personal injury you may suffer whilst using our facilities. Should you believe you have an existing medical condition that may be affected by the use of our facilities, we strongly recommend you seek medical advice before using the centre.
______________
The text below has seven sections, A-G.
A home from home at Melborough University!
A Our relationship with Bechamp Logistics has been a long and fruitful one and we continue to welcome its employees to Melborough University for an education that is second to none. Whether you are about to start a full-time MBA or joining one of our part-time courses, we look forward to welcoming you to the university. We appreciate how important it is that you quickly and easily find somewhere to live during your time here. This leaflet will outline how we work with you to choose the right accommodation.
B Obtaining suitable accommodation is a priority for those who are leaving their friends, colleagues and family to spend a period of time away from home. For this reason we promise that all Bechamp Logistics employees who have been accepted on a course with us will receive help with accommodation should they need it.
C If you are planning on relocating during your studies or just renting during the week, we recommend you live on campus as experience has shown this will help you settle into your studies more quickly. We have economy single rooms in our halls of residence, or for those looking for a little more luxury we have Soho House, our dedicated hall for company-sponsored students. Should you prefer to live off campus we can offer you a single-room apartment or rooms in a shared house in the city centre or suburbs.
Please visit the accommodation section of our website for further details.
D To help you make your choice you will find extensive information on our website with detailed descriptions of all our accommodation including photos and video tours of rooms and halls. You will also find a full price list for the various accommodation types. For people who are able to visit the university before the application deadline, you are welcome to contact our accommodation office for help with viewing places.
E Students with dependent children can apply for accommodation in any of our dedicated family-friendly halls. There are limited spaces available and you will need to contact us quickly to be sure of obtaining a place on campus. Should these not be available we are always able to help with accommodation off campus. You should go through the application process as usual and be sure to complete the section marked 'dependents'. This will alert our staff to your requirements so they can prioritise your application.
F Once you have been offered a place at the university you are advised to apply for accommodation immediately. All applications are made online. Once we have received your application we will arrange a time for you to be called by our accommodation office where we will talk to you about your options. Following this conversation, we will either reserve your campus accommodation or represent you should you be looking for a place to live off campus in private accommodation. You will receive written confirmation of your residence no later than two weeks before the start of term.
G Our accommodation office will be pleased to answer any questions you may have when you arrive at university. Before handing over the keys we ask you to sign a contract outlining your responsibilities. Please note that included in these terms is a commitment to pay for your accommodation for the full academic year.
The text below has eight paragraphs, A-H.
Understanding the Flight of the Bumblebee
A Bumblebees are remarkable navigators. While their flight paths may look scattered to the casual eye, all that buzzing about is anything but random. Like the travelling salesman in the famous mathematical problem of how to take the shortest path along multiple stops, bumblebees quickly find efficient routes among flowers. And once they find a good route, they stick to it. The same goes for other animals, from hummingbirds to bats to primates, that depend on patchy resources such as nectar and fruit. Perhaps this is not such a surprising feat for animals with relatively high brain power. But how do bumblebees, with their tiny brains, manage it? As new research in this issue of PLOS Biology by Lars Chittka and colleagues shows, a simple strategy may be enough for a real-world solution to this complex problem.
B For computers, solving the travelling salesman problem means methodically calculating and comparing the lengths of all possible routes. But such an exhaustive approach isn't feasible in practice, and indeed animals can find a near-optimal foraging route, or trapline, without trying them all. Determining exactly how they do this, however, has been stymied by the difficulties of tracking animals as they forage in the wild. Chittka and colleagues got around this problem by tracking bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) on five artificial flowers set in a mown pasture. The "flowers" had landing platforms with drops of sucrose in the middle, and were fitted with motion-triggered webcams.
C To keep the bees' focus on the artificial flowers, the experiments were done in October, when natural sources of nectar and pollen were scarce. To make the bees want to find all five flowers, each sucrose drop was only enough to fill one-fifth of a bumblebee's crop. And to keep the bees from finding one foraging site from another visually, the flowers were arranged in a pentagon that was 50 m on each side, which is more than three times farther than bumblebees can see.
D The researchers released bees individually from a nest box that was about 60 m from the nearest flower, and used the webcams to track the sequence of flower visits during consecutive foraging bouts. The bees found the closest flowers first and added new flowers during subsequent bouts. With experience, they repeated segments of the visitation sequence that shortened the overall route while abandoning those that did not. Traplines linking all five flowers in a short route were established after an average of 26 foraging bouts, which entailed trying only about 20 of the 120 possible routes.
E In addition, the researchers fitted five bees with transponders and tracked them with radar as they developed traplines. This revealed that flight paths between trapline segments were relatively straight and that, between their first and last bouts, bees cut their total travel distance by 80% (from 1,953 to 458 m). In contrast to computers, bees did not find the absolute shortest route of 312 m even in this simple experimental arrangement. But they came very close, which is remarkable considering that they explored only a small fraction of the possible routes, and established traplines relatively rapidly. This tradeoff between perfection and speed highlights the differences between mathematical and biological solutions to the travelling salesman problem.
F How do bees develop such efficient routes so fast? The researchers assessed three possibilities: that bees optimize foraging routes by visiting flowers in the order of discovery, by shuffling them randomly, or by visiting those that are closest together. But they found that the first two failed to fit their observations while the third did not fully explain them.
G Rather, the researchers propose that bees optimize foraging routes by combining exploration with learning from previous bouts, which enables the bees to adjust their routes as they find shorter paths. Based on the bees' movements during trapline establishment, the researchers developed a model linking experience to the likelihood of visiting particular flowers. Bees are well known to be able to compute and memorize distances between locations, and the model assumes that they remember the length of the shortest route so far, compare it to the length of the current route, and then choose the shorter of the two. Over time, choosing the more efficient route favours shorter segments over longer ones. The model is a good fit with the researchers' observations, predicting, for example, that bees will develop and stick to optimal routes in 20-25 bouts.
H Besides shedding light on how bees develop traplines, this work suggests that small-brained animals can use simple methods to solve complex routing problems without the need for cognitive maps of spatial relationships, as has been suggested. It remains to be seen whether big-brained animals can also develop traplines with such elementary tools. But if so, that would free up their brain power for other tasks.